There is known in the prior art an apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 59-238769 (Unexamined Patent Publication No. 61-115825) filed Nov. 12, 1984 in the name of the present applicant.
This apparatus known in the prior art is provided with a plurality of label applying heads arranged in a rotary manner so that the applying heads apply labels to the bodies of the bottles on a table during one rotation thereof. In this arrangement, a label of a predetermined length is successively cut from a tubular web of thermoshrinkable material folded flat, and the opposite surfaces of the label are sucked by suction pads arranged at the opposite sides thereof. A label applying guide comprising a pair of claws made of a thin plate is inserted from the underside of the tubular label into the space formed in the label by the application of suction thereto, and a bottle fed from below by a lifting table is inserted into the space of the label broadened by the claws. Finally, under the condition that the tubular label is pressed against the body of the bottle by a label presser the claws are pulled out from inside the tubular label so as to apply the tubular label to the body of the bottle.
The above-mentioned prior art apparatus has a characteristic of a high-speed machine and requires as many suction pads, applying guides, label pressers, lifting tables and other devices as there are bottle stations on the rotary mechanism. To operate there devices in timed relation to each other, a large driving power and vacuum pumps are also required. As a result, the apparatus is complicated in construction and very expensive and is not ready to deal with bottles or tubular labels of different sizes.
The object of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus for successively applying thermoshrinkable tubular labels to bottles and other containers, which can easily be adjusted to deal with labels of different sizes and shapes by replacement of a minimum number of parts and subsequent adjustment associated therewith, and which is simplified in construction and easy to handle, and in which a large reduction in cost has been achieved.